A conspiracy of archaeologists? I don’t think so.

Is this stone final proof of a world wide prehistoric culture? Apparently there is an established archaeological community which ignores the results.I simply can’t believe in a world wide conspiracy of archaeologists who oppose new ideas. I have good evidence that there isn’t.

I was asked to comment on an article on facebook because of my interest in prehistoric incised objects as part of my package of mnemonic technologies, memory aids used by societies who don’t write. The facebook comment summarised the lengthy article saying:

“By Steven & Evan Strong (4th Sept) – The discovery of the “Australian” stone is amongst the strongest evidence yet for a Stone Age global civilisation, and now, it is no longer possible for the established archaeological community to ignore the results. The angles drawn by the lines are astronomical values used to predict eclipses, and whatever tools were used are not supposed to exist in “Australia” until 1788… wakeup-world.com/2014/09/04/the-rock-that-may-rewrite-chapters-of-world-history“

I am not going to argue against the conclusions drawn. It would take too long. The holes in the argument are massive. For me, the alarm bells went up immediately I read of the implied conspiracy of archaeologists world wide.

I can attest from personal experience that archaeologists at the highest echelons of their profession will listen if the evidence is strong and presented rigorously. I stumbled over a new theory for the purpose of Stonehenge and lots of other prehistoric monumental sites as an unexpected result of my PhD research into indigenous science, knowledge systems and memory methods. I have no qualifications in archaeology. Oh dear. And Stonehenge? No other site inspires so many irrational theories.

Slowly I put together my case. I checked it with archaeologists continually, quite happy for them to scream it down so I could return to my original PhD topic. I built up a huge bibliography of peer reviewed sources to justify every step of the argument, and 6 years later, La Trobe University sent the PhD thesis to eminent archaeologists for assessment. It passed with flying colours.

It took too much for me to make the argument within the word limits of a journal paper. It needs a book. My theory has now been reviewed rigorously by experts for Cambridge University Press including a detailed, and very positive, report from a British Neolithic specialist. My arguments have been assessed by archaeologists from Australia and experts in the US case studies, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and Poverty Point in Louisiana. These archaeologists would have been sceptical of someone with no archaeological qualifications, and rightly so, but they still gave it a chance. I also addressed a large number of archaeologists at the massive dig at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney in August 2013 and more at Avebury. Every time, they were initially sceptical, as good scientists should be, but they listened and gave me a fair hearing.

So I find the idea of a conspiracy of archaeologists unconvincing.

What about the claim in the article that similar inscribed stones collected from continents apart showing a universality? My work does argue that there is a universality in these objects because they work phenomenally well as memory aids and are part of a suite of mnemonic technologies. Not only aiding memory of knowledge of astronomy, as implied in this article, but also animal and plant classifications and characteristics, genealogies, navigation, resource rights, laws … lots of pragmatics plus history and religion. All integrated. But the similarity of these inscribed objects is not due to any universal culture. It is due to the similar ways the human brain works. Not surprisingly, cultures all over the world who depended on their memories to store all the knowledge of their society developed a similar suite of the most effective mnemonic technologies known.

Today I reeled off from memory from memory – 405 Victorian birds in taxonomic order with scientific family names and lots of details about ID, habitat and other aspects in the continually growing knowledge base. I used an abstract decorated device based on the African lukasa. [OK, I missed a few but I nearly got them all!]

I can’t wait for my book to be out so that the argument can be assessed in full and I can join the debate. It will be titled “Knowledge and power in prehistoric societies: orality, memory and the transmission of culture”, pub: Fall (US) 2015 by Cambridge University Press.

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About lynne

I am an Honorary Researcher at LaTrobe University. I am the author of 17 books, the most recent being 'Spiders: learning to love them' (Allen & Unwin), 'Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies' (Cambridge University Press, and 'The Memory Code' (Allen & Unwin, AUS; Pegasus Books, US and Atlantic Books, UK). My new book 'Memory Craft' is about how to apply the indigenous memory methods - and many more - in contemporary life. It was published on June 3, 2019.

2 Responses to A conspiracy of archaeologists? I don’t think so.

Having been privileged to read Lynne’s revolutionary thesis, I also can’t wait for her book to be published – so I can reference it extensively in my own work on the emergence of technologies for accumulating and managing human knowledge. I anticipate that it will have an effect on paleoarcheology comparable to the effect that the theory of plate tectonics did in the discipline of geology.